It's all just a matter of perspective…

Category Archives: True

There are only a few things from the early years of my life that I hold close with an absolute ninja grip, and the most important of those things may be cinema.

Movies have the power to inspire, to add colour and intrigue to a life in the ordinary, and to inspire us to be creative, adventurous and, simply, more interesting.

While most of us have extremely fond memories / recollections of watching our favourite movies over and over, I’m sure a great number of us feel as though modern cinema just hasn’t captured that family-oriented action/comedy that was so popular during the 80s and 90s.

For me, this is most embodied in the Back to the Future franchise; its storyline is brilliant, its writing is fantastic, and the way everything works out in the end is just so heartfelt and genuine that it illustrates the passion and love for the craft of storytelling that everyone involved in making the film so wholeheartedly possessed.

While there are many such examples of great films, and films with which I have powerful, long-lasting memories, one of my favourites (and that I still quote to this day) is The Sandlot.

Without going into too much detail because, let’s face it, there are few who are uninitiated in the hilarity that is The Sandlot, here is a brief synopsis: kid is new to town and has no friends – he moved there with his mom and new step dad. The step dad is a massive baseball fan and has a collection of rare memorabilia. The kid eventually goes out and makes some friends, who all play ball and, even though he sucks, he joins them in play. When they lose the last ball they have during play, and wanting to be the hero, he runs home to grab his step dad’s signed Babe Ruth ball and then brings that back to play with. The ball is then promptly hit over a fence into a terrifying man’s backyard, and is caught by an impossibly huge dog nicknamed the beast. The rest of the movie is a hilarious quest to retrieve the ball.

This past February Matt McLaughlin an attorney in Huntington Beach, California, spent $200 dollars (read: less than the cost of any worthwhile piece of technology / 10 Starbucks coffees) to propose a ballot called the “Sodomite Suppression Act” that would legalize the killing of gays and bisexuals by “bullets to the head” or “any other convenient method.”

Seriously.

Even more disturbing than this is the fact that this proposition will likely make it further along the political conveyor belt to the ‘signature stage,’ a point where it will almost certainly be stricken down; however, in the meantime, State Attorney General Kamala Harris has no legal choice but to push it along the line for its eventual rejection.

Further to straight up murder, the proposed measure also includes a $1 million dollar fine and 10 year prison sentence for anyone that spreads “sodomistic propaganda” to a minor. This, obviously, makes little to no sense as a) promotional material for sodomy is (most likely) non-existent anyway, and b) holy shit what are they talking about in the first place.

Previously declined $200 batshit-crazy ideas to be proposed in California include the banning of divorce and making Christmas caroling mandatory for public school students. Greater detail after the jump.

In case you have ever, once, in your entire life doubted the capability or general awesomeness of a Pixar artist, you take that back right goddamn now.

Sorry, it’s these R-rated scenes, I’m tellin’ ya.

Pixar Artist / Story Supervisor, Josh Cooley, whom I originally labelled a ‘Pixar Artish’ before realizing my fingers had got ahead of me and were already working on ‘Josh,’ is trying his hand at something different: using his artistic talent and instincts to re-create some of the most iconic scenes from non-children (read: adult, but not in that way) films, but with the famous Pixar panache.

Samples of Cooley’s artwork can be seen below, and more details about his book, Movies R Fun, can (and should) be found after the (previous) jump.

Similarly awesome examples of the juxtaposition of kid-style art with hilarious, adult-oriented messages can be found here, here, and here. Also, you can get an audiobook of Samuel L. Jackson reading the first one, in case you are too pansy-assed to read it on your own.

Airplanes fly through some crazy stuff. They go up and over thunderstorms, they easily survive temperature gradients from over 40° C to well below -70° C; some can even dodge missiles, or fly nearly into outer space. However, just this week, a British Airways flight from Heathrow to Dubai was forced to abort mission for what is perhaps the silliest reason of all time.

Was it birds on the runway? Nope.

Was it ice on the wings? Nope.

Was it, god forbid, a terrorist threat? Nope.

What grounded this flight was a passenger. Not an unruly passenger, no. It was a passenger with a severe problem – a severe toilet problem. A fellow passenger later tweeted that the flight was aborted due to a “smelly poo in the toilet.”

“Blimey, I know airplane food is bad but this is ridiculous…”

To quote the pilot, who ordered the plane to return to Heathrow, the reason for the returned flight was a ‘pungent odour’ coming from one of the plane’s bathrooms, emitting from what he, quite colourfully describe to be “liquid fecal excrement.”

Apparently the crew had “examined” the problem, and were “unable to fix it,” leading some to speculate that this particular poo was not limited to the boundaries of the toilet bowl… if you catch my poo drift.

While this passenger, who remains nameless (though certainly not without nickname), has checked one more item off of their (poo) bucket list, I now need to devise a more nefarious plan for getting one of my own flights grounded via bodily fluid.

While this is not particularly shocking to me as a non-parent and additionally inexperienced babysitter/holder/coddler, the rest of the world is, apparently, finding this quite amusing.

Cillian McCann, a newborn Irish baby, repeated back ‘hello’ to his mother after several visibly trying attempts to form the word. According to Science, word formation doesn’t generally happen until around the 18th month or thereabouts, putting this baby roughly 16 months ahead of schedule.

Now, join the millions of other onlookers in watching this miniature human say something we’ve all heard a billion times:

“Dammit, baby, say it when I walk IN, not when I’m leaving.”

Next on the baby’s To-Do list are 1) taking solid poos, and 2) prank calling his parents. Walking and getting into Oxford should follow shortly thereafter.

After an investigation conducted by Turkey’s Children Services General Directorate, the country is prepared to issue a ban against the sale of Minecraft within its borders.

For the uninitiated (ed. note: no one on this planet), Minecraft, created by Mojang Studios (and primarily its founder, Marcus ‘Notch’ Persson), is a game that involves chipping away various types of blocks that form an infinitely massive 3D world, and then using these blocks to build things. These blocks include things such as wood (from trees), sand, gravel, stone, and dirt, amongst other things, and the primary goal of the game is survival and exploration; a day/night cycle requires that players find or build shelter before nightfall, or be forced to fight various monsters that come out when the sun goes down.

“But I’m too young to die!!”

The game, a worldwide phenomenon, is played by almost 28 million people (or more than the population of 153 individual countries, and just below half of Turkey’s population) across PC, Mac, Xbox, Playstation, and iDevices.

Importantly, success in the game is not predicated on the use of violence to achieve an end goal, but rather on the players’ own ambitions and creativity.

In a statement released by Mojang, and published on PCGamer.com, a representative for the company has said the following:

“The world of Minecraft can be a dangerous place: it’s inhabited by scary, genderless monsters that come out at night. It might be necessary to defend against them to survive. If people find this level of fantasy conflict upsetting, we would encourage them to play in Creative Mode, or to enable the Peaceful setting. Both of these options will prevent monsters from appearing in the world.”

Meanwhile, a cursory Google search will yield no results regarding any kind of ban of Grand Theft Auto 5 in the country, one of the most violent, controversial, and widely banned video games of all time.

Minecraft’s ban-status will be reviewed by courts and decided upon in the near future, so get your fill of Turkish Minecraft while you can.

Careful where you leave your DNA, folks; an artist in New York named Heather Dewey-Hagborg (well, that’s unfortunate) has been creating 3D printed sculptures/busts of people’s faces built upon the DNA she has been able to scoop from chewing gum, cigarette butts, and strands of hair.

“Whatever you do, don’t look up its nose.”

Dewey-Hagborg finds a sample, extracts the DNA from it using a “DNA Investigator Kit” that she says is readily available from Qiagen, an online healthcare/lab materials website, and then puts the sample through some rigorous analysis to determine the genetic make-up and appearance of her subject.

Her exhibit, titled Stranger Visions, is a collection of 3D printed faces of the subjects she has chosen and been able to analyze, and each one, interestingly, comes with additional (seemingly irrelevant, but otherwise interesting) details such as the wetness of the person’s earwax, their resistance to Malaria, and the likelihood that each person will become freckly or go bald.

While each piece is undoubtedly creepy, the overall concept is an intriguing one, and her work is groundbreaking and a sign of things to come in the art world.

While admittedly not as awesome as it sounds, this is still remarkable.

The NHL’s Florida Panthers today announced their intent to hold public tryouts for a practice goalie after stud starter Roberto Luongo and (mostly mediocre) back-up Al Montoya both suffered injuries during the team’s game against the (fully mediocre) Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday night.

“Does it hurt when I press here?”

After both goalies were injured, the team considered using an assistant coach or depth player to fill the role; however, they determined it to be a better, and likely hilarious (or conversely heart-warming, endearing, or the far-more-likely ‘ticket-selling’) option to look to the public for support. Successful applicants will be invited to join the Panthers at practice, and the two that remain standing will go head to head during an intermission of the Panthers’ upcoming game against the Canadiens for the ultimate prize: a one-day contract to play as the Panthers’ back-up goalie during practice.

While this is definitely not as awesome as getting to play back-up in a real game, never mind getting to start the game, it does certainly raise interest in not only the NHL, but in the small-market Florida Panthers… not to mention pave the way for a Disney-funded rags-to-riches tale should the winning goalie actually be something special.

As the sun crosses what is known as the celestial equator towards the end of March we, as North Americans, will pass officially into spring. Until then, unfortunately, we are in what only seems to be the middle of a very long, cold winter, eager for any sort of reprieve.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Earth, people in India are celebrating their coming of spring today, March 6th, in one of the greatest ways that one could imagine: having an all-out, no holds barred colour fight (the word fight, here, being used in a sort of gleeful opposition, rather than anything nasty).

Various munitions, forged from captured rainbows.

Known as the festival of love or festival of colours, Holi is a time to welcome spring and to celebrate nature by flinging colourful powders and water on your friends, family and total strangers, both old and young – and as long as you’re out on the streets or in a public space, you are fair game as a target.

Tragedy today, as an explosion rips through the Kool-Aid factory.

While not celebrated exclusively by Hindus, Holi is rooted in ancient Hindu belief and is also a day for forgiving, forgetting, and starting anew – practices that many people, not just of Hindu faith or Indian descent, can surely appreciate the value of.

The festival (which in some parts of India lasts 16 days!) is marked by singing, dancing, and ritual bonfires, and is an opportunity for the community to come together, have fun, and strengthen their bonds.

Let me make one thing clear before getting into this story: I am not anti-America. I think America can (and should) stand for good in this world, however, I also believe that parts of it are absolutely not doing that. I am, alternatively, pro-people; I believe in universal human rights – like having the freedoms of speech and mobility, as well as the right to a due process if accused of some crime, and the right to unbiased decisions based on race, creed or sexual orientation. These last rights, however, are still regularly being ignored and, despite the fact that equality is at an all-time high in not only North America, but the world (though I’m not blind to the lengths we as a species still need to go), sexual and racial biases, even segregation, continue to persist.

While it may not only be America that is guilty of these egregious missteps in relation to what is becoming more and more socially acceptable and normal, it is America that is in the spotlight.

First, the issue – a high school in Wilcox county, Georgia, holds annually two proms: one for the black students, and one for the white students. This high school, however, has not broken any civil rights laws as these proms are funded by the parents and students within the school, thereby making them hosts of the events, and thereby responsible for their message. The school, however, does condone these segregated dances, and has some form of input as to their running.

1950s or Wilcox County, Georgia, this afternoon? You decide.

The reason that this is only now in the media’s spotlight is because several students at this school, specifically four girls who are best friends (of which two are white, and two of African-American descent), have taken it upon themselves to raise the money for the school’s first integrated prom. This means that, until the year 2013, no student, parent, or educational/governmental group in the area has made any kind of serious effort to put on a prom that would see all students get to attend the same dance, regardless of race or creed. Furthermore, the school also holds separate homecoming events for each race.

“We are all friends,” one of the girls told the local press. “That’s just kind of not right that we can’t go to prom together.”

Now, I’m not a doctor. I’m also not a rocket scientist, civil rights expert, or law-maker, but when a few 16 year old girls are the only people making rational statements to the press about the right or wrongness of separating students by race, and in the year 2013 mind you, it may be time to reevaluate your whole approach to life. Look around, Georgia… America… times have changed and (holy shit) it’s about time you did too.

If at this point you’re asking yourself why some sort of protest hasn’t happened, here’s your answer: last year, when a bi-racial student attempted to attend the white-only prom, police were called in to ask him to leave the premises. In the school’s own lame attempt to unify this school, however, this year they have decided that there will be only one prom king and one prom queen – thought it won’t really make a difference as the Queen is a black student and the King is a white student, so they’ll never have a dance together and were not even allowed to be photographed together for the school yearbook.

If you aren’t disgusted yet, this: the four girls who have bravely taken on the task of holding this integrated prom have run into some problems along the way… the girls, after putting posters up in the halls for the integrated prom have actually had “people ripping them down at the school” probably out of a fear of change or just because whythefucknot.

Is it time for a country-wide standard on these types of issues? I hesitate, as well, to use the word “issues” because, really, why is it even an issue at all? Just when you think we, as a people, have grown up, have found some common sense, or otherwise changed for the better, you stumble upon a story like this and it feels like maybe we deserve to be blind-sided by a continent-sized asteroid.

As far as I’m concerned the focus should be on whether this segregation is right-or-wrong on the whole, and the answer, I think, is fairly black and white.